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Antihistamines can cause drowsiness, which might help you fall asleep for a few nights — but routine use of antihistamines for insomnia isn’t recommended.

Antihistamines induce drowsiness by working against histamine, a chemical produced by the central nervous system. In fact, most over-the-counter sleep aids contain antihistamines. These products are intended to be used for only two to three nights at a time, however, such as when stress, travel or other disruptions keep you awake. Tolerance to the sedative effects of antihistamines can develop quickly — so the longer you take them, the less likely they are to make you sleepy. Side effects might include daytime drowsiness, dry mouth, dizziness and memory problems.

Also, keep in mind that diphenhydramine and doxylamine — sedating antihistamines found in various over-the-counter sleep aids — aren’t recommended for people who have closed-angle glaucoma, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, severe liver disease or urinary retention, which can be preceded by a weak urine stream or trouble starting urination. In addition, most sleep aids aren’t recommended for women who are pregnant or breast-feeding.

If you’re struggling with chronic insomnia, don’t rely on antihistamines or other over-the-counter sleep aids for a good night’s sleep. Start with lifestyle changes instead:
•Follow a regular sleep schedule.
•Avoid caffeine and daytime naps.
•Include physical activity in your daily routine.
•Manage stress.

If you continue to have trouble falling or staying asleep, consult your doctor. In addition to lifestyle changes, your doctor might recommend ways to make your sleeping environment more conducive to sleep or behavior therapy to help you learn new sleep habits. In some cases, short-term use of prescription sleep aids might be recommended as well.

Children fight it. Adults can’t seem to get enough. What is it? Sleep. If you’re struggling to get a good night’s sleep, it may be time to tune up your bedtime — and daytime — routines. Try these self-help tips.

Bedtime

•Find ways to relax. A warm bath before bedtime can help prepare you for sleep. Having your partner give you a massage also may help relax you. Create a relaxing bedtime ritual, such as reading, soft music, breathing exercises, yoga or prayer.
•Make the bed comfortable. Having a comfortable pillow and mattress can help promote a good night’s sleep. In general, latex, contour foam and polyester pillows perform better than feather or regular foam pillows, but the choice comes down to your personal preference. Similarly, the choice of a firm or soft mattress is largely a matter of individual preference. You may need to experiment to find what works for you.
•Create a sleep-friendly space. Close your bedroom door or create a subtle background noise, such as a running fan, to help drown out other noises. Keep your bedroom temperature comfortable, usually cooler than during the day and dark. Don’t keep a computer or TV in your bedroom.
•Hide the clocks. Set your alarm so that you know when to get up, but then hide all clocks in your bedroom, including your wristwatch and cellphone. You’ll sleep better if the clocks are out of view.
•Get out of bed if you’re not sleeping. Sleep as much as needed to feel rested, and then get out of bed. The bedroom should be used for sleep and intimacy. So, if you can’t sleep, get out of bed after 20 minutes and do something relaxing, such as reading, rather than lying in bed and getting frustrated about your wakefulness.

It may be. Recent studies have suggested an association between sleep duration and weight gain. Sleeping less than five hours — or more than nine hours — a night appears to increase the likelihood of weight gain.

In one study, recurrent sleep deprivation in men increased their preferences for high-calorie foods and their overall calorie intake. In another study, women who slept less than six hours a night or more than nine hours were more likely to gain 11 pounds (5 kilograms) compared with women who slept seven hours a night. Other studies have found similar patterns in children and adolescents.

One explanation may be that sleep duration affects hormones regulating hunger — ghrelin and leptin — and stimulates the appetite. Another contributing factor may be that lack of sleep leads to fatigue and results in less physical activity.

So now you have another reason to get a good night’s sleep

Having a problem with self-harm, suicidal thoughts or actions, or an increased presence of erratic emotions are all major red flags of Borderline Personality Disorder. Having these problems can greatly impact your ability to function properly and keep yourself safe from the overwhelming, up and down emotional rollercoaster that you face every day with this disorder.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is a common method of treatment where you can learn how to control the negative emotions that fuel your need to harm yourself.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy can help put you back in the driver’s seat of your emotions, taking away their power over you. It can also help rebuild your self-esteem, decrease your anxieties, nurture relationships, and control your anger. All of these steps are going to be crucial in helping you stop idealizing suicide and practicing self-harm.

DBT Practices for Better Emotion Regulation

There are three practices in Dialectical Behavior Therapy that can help you understand how your body and mind communicate, and how you can control that communication in an effort to decrease your need to self-harm. These steps are called T.I.P.:
•Temperature: By changing your body temperature, you will encourage your autonomic nervous system to calm down and begin to relax. This part of your nervous system is what controls your respiratory and cardiovascular systems. For example, do you ever wonder why people splash cold water on their faces when overly stressed? The natural reaction to cold water on the skin stimulates a message to the nervous system telling it to begin to relax. This is practiced through the first step of T.I.P, where you change your temperature to change the way your body is responding to stressful emotions, such as anger and agitation.
•Intensely Exercise: Here, you will focus primarily on your ability to engage in a physical activity designed to allow for stress release. This can be as simple as going to the gym or something more physical such as rock climbing. This stimulates your body and your mind into producing positive chemicals ready to combat negative emotions.
•Progressively Relax your Muscles: You can do this step while sitting at your desk, it’s that easy! You can begin by tensing up each of your muscles for 10 seconds and then releasing them. Start from the top down, the neck to the feet, and this will send signals to your brain that will promote relaxation.

By engaging in the T.I.P practices, you will truly begin to understand how to regain control of your emotions and the feelings that cause you to harm yourself.

Of course, these Dialectical Behavior Therapy practices will never truly work unless you are ready to make a change for yourself by learning how to care about yourself once again. Through understanding and the appropriate actions, you can start your path to recovery through relaxation and control.

If you are engaging in self-harming behaviors, you may be doing so because you feel intense emotional pain and feel as though you have no other outlet.

But you can feel better and stop your self-harmful behaviors.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) has proven to be very effective when it comes to ending self-harmful behaviors. With DBT, you can learn skills that will help you to better regulate your emotions and find healthy ways to cope with pain.

If you are harming yourself through methods such as cutting, you can use emotion regulation DBT skills to better manage your emotions. Remember that emotions are normal and everyone experiences them. But sometimes the distress can feel very overwhelming and difficult to manage.

DBT Skills: Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation DBT skills help you see a link in the cycle connecting thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.

Here are three ways to use emotion regulation skills to stop self-harmful behaviors:

1. Practice the Opposite Action. Some researchers have shown that emotions cause a response in our bodies. For example, if you are angry about something, you might attack. If you are sad, you might withdraw, and if you are fearful, you might run away.

One emotion regulation DBT skill for self-harm is to commit to your opposite action. Where you might normally attack if you are angry, you would instead make a concerted effort to identify the emotion you feel, understand the action, and then commit to doing the opposite. In this instance, instead of attacking, you would avoid the situation and be kind.

Doing the opposite of what you would normally do is soothing because it will help you feel the opposite of what you are feeling right now. Even something like watching a funny video on the Internet or listening to an upbeat pop song will provide the “opposite action” to pull you from your self-harm.

2. Apply Acronyms. Dialectical Behavior Therapy teaches the use of acronyms to help you remember and practice important skills.

One helpful acronym is called “PLEASE MASTER,” and it provides the tools you need to regulate your emotions. You would commit to treating any “Physical iLlness;” “Eat” healthy food; “Avoid” alcohol, drugs, or anything mood-altering; “Sleep” well; “Exercise;” and then “MASTER” something that gives you a sense of achievement or ability.

Another helpful acronym is “STOPP,” which stands for “Stop and Step Back” (in your mind), “Take” a breath and notice your breath move in and out, “Observe” what are you thinking and feeling, “Pull” back and try to imagine that you are an outside observer, and finally “Practice” what works by asking yourself how you feel after this STOPP dialog and what is best for you in your situation. The steps described in this acronym provide a quick and easy window into the DBT practice.

3. Manipulate an Image. If you feel led to harm yourself based on a distressing image, such as a memory or something you saw or imagined that you can’t get out of your head, try either of these tips:

First, you can imagine putting the image on a monitor. Take your imaginary mouse and make the image smaller, change the colors to black and white, and mute the sound you might associate with the image. Continue making the image smaller until it is microscopic.

You can also try to imagine a piece of thick clear plastic that you put between your face and the image. Imagine yourself pushing the image away, through the glass, until the image is small and far away.

If you have the urge to self-harm, try using these emotion regulation DBT skills. Of course, if you are in danger of harming yourself, always seek professional or emergency help. Reaching out to someone is always an option.

1. Can I relieve your stress in any way?

One thing all writing manuals say is SHOW don’t TELL. Words aren’t all that helpful to a person struggling with depression. Because let me speak from experience… almost everything she hears will somehow be twisted to sound like an insult. Every suggestion — St. John’s Wort? Organic apples? Yoga?–are going to come off as: You are doing something terribly wrong and this is all your fault.

SO what I found most comforting when I couldn’t pull myself up by my bootstraps is when a friend came over and fixed me lunch, or when someone offered to tidy up my place. I realize that sounds a tad pampered and self-indulgent, but we wouldn’t think twice about doing it for someone who is going through chemo. Why not go there for a person battling a serious mood disorder?

2. What do you think might help you to feel better?

This one I picked up from parenting manuals. If you tell a little girl to stay away from the Skittles because she becomes demonic after indulging in those tasty sweets, that’s not really going to do much more than shove five in her mouth. However, if you say … “Do you remember when you slapped Cousin Fred in the face at the picnic last week because you got excited after eating a bag of Skittles? Do you think there’s a chance of that happening again?” she MAY very well still desire the Skittles, and hell, she might even shove another five in her mouth; however, there is also a chance she will arrive at her own solutions and, say, … go for the doughnut instead!

3. Is there something I can do for you?

Again, like number one, this is a SHOW not TELL moment, and those are very effective at communicating compassion. Chances are that the depressed person will just shake her head as she cries, but I can assure you that she will register your offer in that place instead her heart that says, “This person cares about me.” Now if she asks you to file her tax return, I apologize sincerely.

4. Can I drive you somewhere?

Here’s something that most people don’t know about folks battling depression: they are really bad drivers. REALLY bad. In fact, when I was admitted into the inpatient psych unit at Johns Hopkins, I was shocked that one of the questions was, “Have you received any speeding tickets, or ran into other cars, or big orange columns in parking garages that got paint all over your Honda and pissed off your husband?” When I inquired with the nurse why that question was on there, she said “bad driving is an easy way to diagnose a mood disorder.”

All I can say there is: True. True. True. So, this suggestion is not only to help out your depressed friends who maybe do need some fish oil or tissue paper from the drug store, but also all the other people on the road.

5. Where are you getting your support?

Notice the difference between saying, “Are you going to any support group meetings?” which implies, “If you aren’t, you are one lazy son of a bitch who deserves to be depressed.” And “Where are you getting your support?” which says, “You need some support. Let’s figure out a way to get it.”

6. You won’t always feel this way.

That was the perfect sentence that I could hear 50 times a day when I wanted out, out, out, of this world. Those words don’t judge, impose, or manipulate. What they do is convey hope, and HOPE is what keeps a person alive, or at least motivated to get to the next day to see if the light at the end of the tunnel is really a place of rebirth or a friggin’ freight train.

7. Can you think of anything contributing to your depression?

This is a very gentle way of saying, “It’s your abusive marriage that’s bringing you down, fool!” or “You think maybe the witch you work with might have a little something to do with the mood dips?” You’re poking around, but not stopping the stick on any one thing. Again, like the preschooler, she has to arrive at her own conclusions, and when she does, she will take accountability for what she can change and not blame you for any negative results.

8. What time of day is hardest for you?

This one was brilliant. It was my mom’s. So she called twice a day, once in the morning–because depression is usually most acute upon waking (“Crap, I’m still alive.”)–and at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, when blood sugar dips and anxiety can take over. Mind you, she didn’t have to say a whole lot, but knowing that I could count on her during those two times was a little bit like holding someone’s hand through a dangerous intersection.

9. I’m here for you.

It’s simple. It’s sweet. And it communicates everything you need to say: I care, I get it, I don’t really understand it, but I love you, and I support you.

10. Nothing.

That’s the most uncomfortable one, because we always want to fill in the silence with something, even if it’s weather talk. But saying nothing … and merely listening … is sometimes the very best response, and the most appropriate. I love this passage from Rachel Naomi Remen’s bestselling book Kitchen Table Wisdom:

I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. And especially if it’s given from the heart. When people are talking, there’s no need to do anything but receive them. Just take them in. Listen to what they’re saying. Care about it. Most times caring about it is even more important than understanding it.

We are a psychologically sophisticated society. Emotional difficulties are now shared openly — not only by celebrities but by your average person. It’s not unusual for people to tell friends that they have an anxiety disorder, anger management problem, depression, panic attacks, phobias, eating disorder, substance abuse problem, OCD or ADD.

Yet, there is a widespread psychological disorder that most people know little or nothing about. Why? Because its symptoms are largely interpersonal, causing many to view it as a relationship issue, not a mental health one. Also, people shy away from the term because of its unflattering name: Borderline Personality Disorder.

“Borderline? Am I going over the edge into an abyss? Oh my gosh! Next topic.”

Enough ignorance. Let’s review the major symptoms of people who have borderline personality disorder (BPD):
•They have turbulent and stormy relationships, making it difficult to keep a job or maintain a close relationship.
•They have frequent emotional outbursts, often expressing their outrage with verbal abuse, physical attacks or acts of revenge.
•Though they’re acutely sensitive to being abandoned and rejected, they’re harshly critical of those closest to them.
•They view others as “good” or “bad.” A friend, parent or therapist may be idealized one day, yet viewed the next day as a terrible person for failing to live up to their expectations.
•They may act out with self-destructive activity (i.e. reckless driving, compulsive shopping, shoplifting, cutting, bingeing with food, alcohol, drugs or promiscuous sex) as a way to fend off feelings of unbearable emptiness.

Borderline personalities run the gamut from mild to severe. It’s generally only the people who know borderlines intimately who are aware of the extent of their emotional difficulties.

Some sociologists believe that we are living in a “borderline culture,” heavy on righteous anger, light on acknowledging another’s perspectives. Watch daytime talk shows and you’ll understand what they mean. Or better yet, listen to the rhetoric of Congress and watch them in action (or should I say inaction).

If you recognize your own borderline characteristics, what should you do? If you’re motivated to change, psychotherapy with a psychologist who understands BPD can be quite helpful.

If you’re living with someone with BPD, life probably feels like an emotional roller coaster. So what can you do? Certainly, suggesting psychotherapy is a good idea. Don’t be surprised, however, if he or she uses therapy not to seek understanding but to rage about others. So, if therapy for your loved one is not moving forward, try a few suggestions:

Be consistent and predictable.

Whatever you have told your loved one that you will do (or won’t do), keep your word. If you’re the recipient of a violent outburst of accusations or a tearful meltdown, it won’t be easy. However, if you give in to the outrage, the borderline behavior is reinforced. And if you think your problems are bad now, just wait!

Encourage responsibility.

Don’t become your loved one’s rescuer. Don’t be manipulated into taking responsibility for his irresponsible actions. If he smashes up the car, don’t replace it. If she racks up credit card debt, don’t bail her out. If you keep rescuing her from the consequences of her actions, she will have zero incentive to change.

Offer honest feedback.

Don’t reinforce your loved one’s belief that he’s been treated unfairly unless you actually think that’s true. People with BPD tend to be clueless about how their behavior affects others. Hence, offer honest feedback. Say, “I know it feels rotten when you’re fired” but don’t agree with his assessment that it’s all because of those awful, mean people he worked for.

Don’t escalate the argument.

Your loved one may misinterpret what you mean. Offer constructive criticism and you’re met with a tirade of how despicable you are. Offer a compliment and you’re accused of being patronizing. Explain your intentions and the emotions escalate. Don’t get hooked into a fruitless argument. Do your best to keep your cool and your sanity even though you’re feeling frustrated, powerless and defeated by your loved one’s behavior.